The Mind of a Warrior
by Linkinpark
Summary: A story involving Ender but has nothing to do with the book Ender's game. Sort of an alternative to OSC. No bugger war or anything. PG at least, may change later. R+R!!!!
1. Default Chapter

"Please take your seat Andrew, the bell has rung" Ms. Corley said in a kind voice. Ender took his seat near the back of the classroom in Ms. Corley's second grade class. As he passed a couple of kids smirked or threw things at him. Ignoring them, he walked to his seat and sat down, flipping his desk open.  
  
"If everyone will open up to lesson twelve in your math program" Ms. Corley vocalized, switching her desk screen to a large projection in the front of the class. Ender inserted a disk into his desk- he knew more math the Ms. Corley. Opening a hacking program he had made the previous day during a typing lesson, he began working his way through the computer network.  
  
As Ms. Corley rambled on, Ender planted a Trojan into the desk of one of the boys that sat in front of him. Opening up the boy's hard drive from his desk, Ender went into his English homework that was due today. Looking over it, Ender chuckled to himself at the idiotic mistakes.  
  
"Andrew, is there something funny you would like to share with the class? Let's see what you are up to over there." Quickly hitting Alt+Tab, Ender switched to the current math lesson. Ms. Corley, an instant later, showed Ender's desktop on the projection screen. Disappointed at not seeing anything wrong, she simply said to pay attention and not let his thoughts wonder.  
  
Ender nearly laughed at that statement, but contained himself, looking at other's hard drives. For nearly the entire day he went through and studied everything they were keeping, mentally taking notes and memorizing everything he saw.  
  
The last period of the day had arrived, and Ender had finished searching through their information. He decided to go ahead and design a program for protecting his own hard drive, including making a folder that the teachers could not access or even see on his desk. By the end of the day he was done, and quickly made his way out of the school to the yellow hell tube, otherwise known as a school bus.  
  
Ender was often picked on because of his small size, and how introverted he was. Ender ignored most of it, and when he could found ways to humiliate the people that tormented him so that they wouldn't know he was the source. Of course this didn't help much, because regardless bullies would take things out on him.  
  
Going home was no better than school. With a dead mother, a brain dead father (from too many nights spent drinking), and a brother whose only pleasure in life was pain in Ender, he found no refuge anywhere but at the park. Ender spent all of his time at the park, on a bench facing the lake. Here he could surf the internet and do whatever he pleased on his desk.  
  
When he arrived home to drop off his things, he was confronted with disaster. Police cars, fire trucks, and even ambulances were surrounding his house. His home was in flames. He ran up to the nearest official.  
  
"What happened?" Ender asked, slightly frightened.  
  
"Look kid you shouldn't be around here, it's dangerous." The police officer said, shooing him away.  
  
"But I live here!" Ender failed in an attempt to hide his irritation with the cop.  
  
"Oh you do? Look kid I'm sorry. Why don't you come with me." Ender was led to the tape around the scene, the violently pushed out. "Look kid I don't know who you are but keep away. No one is allowed around here especially little kids."  
  
Shocked, Ender tried to tell him that he really did live there, but the officer walked off, telling him to go home. On the brink of tears, Ender walked away disbelieving. Why am I crying? Ender thought, what was here for me anyways? It isn't like I wasn't hungry when dad was around. And being away from Peter isn't so bad. Ender concluded that things were slightly worse off, but he could manage. So much for school though, he thought, and walked away, into the city.  
  
***  
  
What do I want? Ender asked himself. His answer was simple, to survive. That's not much of a goal, Ender thought once more. What do I want in life, really? Ender thought about it for a moment. Maybe actually expanding his knowledge would be nice. He needed to find someone that would listen to a kid, a kid living on the streets for that matter. Who would listen? Maybe a teacher would listen, perhaps at a high school. With that goal in mind, Ender began to formulate a plan.  
  
After spending the night under a makeshift shelter made of cardboard boxes, Ender went to the park. At the park was a lake, and he could clean himself. Then he could visit the high school at about three, just after school and hopefully find someone to talk to. Ender smiled, and began his bath.  
  
At two forty-five, Ender arrived at the local high school. Fixing his hair and clothes, he walked inside, looking for any kind of office. Seeing a sign denoting the main office directly ahead, he continued in his current direction until he found the correct door.  
  
Knocking, he opened the door without waiting for a response. An older woman, looking surprised asked him what he was doing.  
  
"Hi I am trying to find someone I could talk to about going to school here." Ender said, with his best smile. Immediately he knew this wouldn't work. The older lady smiled and even chuckled at the thought of how 'cute' he looked. Shooing him away, she told him to go find his mother and not to bother any more teachers working.  
  
Disappointed he walked away, directly into a huge guy's leg.  
  
"Oh shit, sorry kid," The boy said in a deep voice compared to Ender's. He must have been at least 15 years old.  
  
"No sweat I'm fine. Do you go to school here?" Ender asked. Maybe this kid knew someone that could hook him up.  
  
"Yeah, what are you here with your brother?" For a moment, he thought the boy knew his brother, but then dismissed the idea.  
  
"No no no, I am trying to figure out how I can go to school here." Ender said.  
  
"Hehe you're only what, 8? You gotta be 15 to go here" The guy laughed and continued walking in the same direction as Ender.  
  
"Yeah I am 8 but I swear I could go to this school. I really do know enough and if you think I am stupid you are sadly mistaken." Ender said, in a very unintimidating manner.  
  
"Yeah ok then," The boy thought about a simple algebra problem from the eighth grade, "fine tell me this: what is x if 3x=x+12." Ender, smiling immediately answered, seemingly without thinking: "x=6 stop playing with me, I told you I'm not dumb." Impressed, the boy tried another, more difficult problem, and again Ender answered without much thought.  
  
They both arrived outside and the boy took a seat on the steps, Ender did the same. After twenty minutes of testing Ender's knowledge of everything the boy learned in eighth grade, and much of his ninth year, he finally gave up.  
  
"How do you know so much?" He asked, in awe.  
  
"I hacked into the national school program back in kindergarten. Since then I have been learning everything I can from it. I am up to the second semester ninth grade year." The boy, realizing this kid was something special, suddenly had a thought.  
  
"Where's your mom?" they boy asked. Ender didn't get emotional, not now.  
  
"Dead, so is my dad I think. Hopefully I will never see my brother again either." The boy looked at him, shocked. Eventually, another half hour later, the rest of the story came out.  
  
"Well here is my mom. You are coming home with me. We can do something for you." He said confidently. Ender smiled.  
  
"Really? You can get me into high school?"  
  
"High school won't be the slightest challenge for you. It's time you got something better." Ender was curious, and followed the boy up to a massive van.  
  
***  
  
The boy had explained everything to his mom, and in turn she explained it to his dad. They both had agreed to take him in temporarily, and while he stayed write letters to colleges for him. In the mean time, Ender would stay in the boy's, whose name was James, room.  
  
"Hey want to play this awesome game on my desk?" James asked Ender.  
  
"What's it called?"  
  
"It's called Starcraft. You start with a main base and expand and make an army. You have to use this army to find and destroy the enemy. Watch me play against a computer player and you can learn." Ender watched.  
  
Absorbing all the controls and quick keys as James played; he watched and mentally criticized every move he made. Ender decided not give him advice, since he was still learning the special men and techniques of each of the three races: Terran (Human), Zerg (bugs), and Protoss (advanced humanoids).  
  
After the game, which James won easily, he handed the game over to Ender. Ender started the game and quickly built a huge army. Scouts flew everywhere and his defenses were actually holding off the entire opponents army. Ender had taken control of six different resource spots, and defended the others from the enemy computer player.  
  
The game ended quickly, Ender the obvious victor. James wasn't surprised. "Ok, now let's try something a bit more difficult." Switching the number of computer opponents to four instead of one, Ender was grossly outnumbered.  
  
Quickly getting a defense up, Ender held off the foolish computer opponents with ease, and then commenced in annihilating them one by one in record time. Ender smiled, and then broke into a chuckle.  
  
"Ok now time for the real competition. You can play over the internet. Humans are so much smarter than the computer players; it's a different game." Ender was confident in himself. James signed in under his screen name, and Ender went to the elite server.  
  
"Slow down there buddy, I can hardly hold my own in the average sever. Let alone the three between average and elite. Why don't you try expert instead." Expert was just under elite. Ender decided to oblige; not just to show that he would have no trouble with them, but also to get used to human strategies.  
  
Two hours later, Ender had racked up twelve more wins for James' record, and had decided to go to the elite server. James said nothing, but simply sat and watched Ender and his strategies.  
  
His first game against an elite player was slaughter. He wasted him with little effort. Obviously this guy was new to Starcraft and didn't know the elite sever mean ELITE only. Hosting a game himself, Ender finally found a worthy opponent. Seventy-five elite server wins and no losses at all.  
  
The game began. Ender tried bold strategies that the opponent had obviously never seen before. Because he was focused so much on fighting computer opponents, as were the others on the server, he was taken by surprise at Ender's defensive set up and attack strategies. Ender was victorious, but not without a difficult battle.  
  
It was nine o'clock, and James said he was going to bed. He told Ender he didn't mind him playing on but asked him to turn down the volume so James could sleep.  
  
The next morning James awoke to the sound of an intense battle raging at his desk. Walking over, he saw through bleary vision that Ender, extremely tired, was obviously winning a battle against an extremely difficult opponent.  
  
"Who ya playin?" James asked tiredly.  
  
"I'm not sure. This is our third game though, and he is very good. I have won the other two games, and things are looking good for this one too. I think you have the best record in the world now. Last time I checked the charts you were third. That was four games ago. These elite games are racking up your points, you must have something like six million." James struggled to do the math in his head… he started with 2500 points, six wins against average players, and thirty something wins against newbie players. Newbie wins were 50, average were 100, the next were 250, then 500, then 750, and finally elite was 2000. That meant he must have played hundreds… no thousands of games last night.  
  
"How did you get so many?" James asked, confused.  
  
"Well after each win against the elite top ten, apparently with your low score you got a million points per win because I haven't updated your record in a while. Looks like you are number one in the whole game by about…" Ender checked the records.  
  
"Five million points. Congratulations, looks like if you keep this record until next month you get a prize." James laughed… Damn this kid is insane… talk about genius.  
  
"Hey I have a great idea. If I can scratch up 150 bucks I can enter you into a tournament. If you win you get 50,000 dollars cash." James said, excitedly  
  
"No way! For beating a buncha idiots on this game? Alright!" Ender laughed, and was actually happy for the first time in his life.  
  
"Well since I will be at school all day, you can play any of my games. Most of them are war games so have fun." At that James walked away to get ready for school.  
  
*** 


	2. DVD

The week passed by as a blur. As the weekend arrived, James' parents had received multiple letters from colleges for Ender. Friday night, at the dinner table, the doorbell rang.  
  
"Oh I'll get it," James hopped up from the table, jogging through the hallway towards the front door. James unlocked the front door, and opened it to the U.P.S. man.  
  
"Hi here you go"  
  
"Thanks" Ender glanced up as James walked back into the kitchen.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Dunno, mom, it says it is for Ender." Everyone looked at Ender.  
  
"Well go ahead and open it, Ender!" James' father said, as curious as the rest of them. Ender's eyes got wide as he received the package. Slowly tearing away at the tape, he popped the top of the small brown package open.  
  
"It's a CD" Ender said.  
  
"Let me see," James' father looked at the CD in the case, "That's a DVD. Let's watch it!" Everyone has stopped eating and walked into the family room to see what it was. James' father placed the DVD into the player, and clicked play.  
  
As the movie played, they soon learned of its nature. A man in a suit talked, and sometimes a few video clips played in the back round.  
  
"The military. They… they want you." James put it lightly. It was as if they were begging Ender to join them. The movie ended with the line "please destroy this DVD immediately", as if out of Hollywood. James' father went to the garbage can and destroyed the DVD. Ender gazed at the pieces falling into the trashcan. The doorbell suddenly rang once more, startling Ender out of his dream-like state.  
  
Ender looked at James, and James looked back. A moment later he walked slowly to the door again. Two men in black suits were standing at the door, with military badges hanging on them. As if they were watching… Ender mentally shook himself, and walked to the door.  
  
The two men discussing something with James immediately stopped when they saw Ender.  
  
"Hello." They smiled. Hi Ender. May we come in? Thanks. Can I sit here? You're too kind. James' mother looked from them to Ender nervously.  
  
"Ender, we would like to talk with you about joining our education program. Now of course we will consult your friend James' parents before we do anything, but we would like to know your decision about joining us."  
  
"Wait a minute here," James' mother burst in, "he couldn't have possible decided yet, he just saw the video a moment ago." The men simply smiled and tried to explain that Ender definitely could have made his decision by then.  
  
Ender knew that this meant he would have to lose James. And James' parents for that matter. Wasn't he planning that though? Wasn't the whole idea to stay here just long enough to move into something better? Ender sighed internally, but kept his poker- face on the outside.  
  
"Of course I will go." He looked at James and smiled. James smiled back, and Ender saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Ender had his own too.  
  
"You can come now, we will provide you with everything you need." Ender knew it would be soon, but this was NOW. His future was now, his challenges would begin now, so he got up, and walked out the door with two men dressed in black with sunglasses, even though it was nighttime. Ender never even finished his dinner.  
  
*** 


End file.
